Fickle Memories

By Jack Clark

What was the name of that place again? I wonder. But the camera won't sit still. It's following a waitress working a Marina City restaurant. I'm pretty sure I ate there years ago.

This is a film by Harry Mantel, part of the Out of the Vault program put together by the Chicago Film Archives. There's nine short films, all shot between 1961 and 1971. They'll be shown in two separate programs, May 10, at the Chicago Cultural Center.

In the very next film, this one by Margaret Conneely, Marina City is under construction. Once again, the camera doesn't stop. It moves on to those big neon signs of Rush Street. The Tradewinds. The Tender Trap. Mister Kelly's. The Kismet Club.

"From Garfield Park to Do Not Park," the announcer intones as the camera follows along; to the Riverview Amusement Park where a sign warns "Do Not Stand Up," just before the Fireball takes the plunge; to fisherman along the lakefront; to a '57 Chevy cruising along and, up above, the Lake Street El taking a curve.

I grew up riding the Lake Street El but it's the clubs where I want the camera to linger, the dimly lit joints that were a few years before my time, when Rush Street, the Loop and Old Town, were all home to genuine--honest to god--nightclubs.

In "Nightsong," a 1965 film by Don B. Klugman, folk singer Willie Wright performs at a place called the Fickle Pickle. But the movie doesn't give a hint of its location.

I call Ed Holstein, a longtime Chicago folksinger and songwriter. "Oh, my god," he says. "The Fickle Pickle. That's the first time I was ever on a stage. I was scared to death." He tells me the club was on State or Rush, a bit south of Division.

I meet Ed later that night at the Old Town School of Folk Music, where he's been working on and off for the last 40 years. In between, he opened and closed two legendary Chicago folk clubs, Somebody Else's Troubles and Holsteins.

"The Fickle Pickle was kind of glorious," he says. "It was a little downstairs place. It was set up really nicely as a listening room. I remember I did a set there the Sunday after President Kennedy got killed. But the first time I ever played there was with my brother Fred. It was a small stage but it seemed like a mile to that microphone. We played 'Gotta Travel On.' I played banjo and Freddy played guitar."

"I was still in high school, like 16 years old. It was a coffee house. There was no booze. It was a really nice place especially with a date. You really felt like you were in a night club. Oh, everybody looked great. There were candles on the tables and red checkered table clothes. It probably sat 50 people. Mike Bloomfield was managing the place. I knew him from the Fret Shop in Hyde Park. He was a really fun guy. So I started hanging out every chance I got.

"Fred used to try songs out at the Pickle. They had an open mic on Sunday night and Freddy would do a set. I remember one night he was singing 'The Hobo's Lullaby,' and Mike Bloomfield picked up an old nylon string guitar and started playing behind him. I wish I had a tape of that."

"Willie Wright was a big deal at the time," Ed says. "He was supposed to be the next Josh White. But I could never get a fix on him. He only played five strings. I didn't get it. I didn't understand what was the big deal. It was a regular six string guitar. He just didn't bother to string the high E. I had no idea why he did it that way.

"He was this real handsome guy and he was a star around Chicago. He played Mother Blues on Wells Street. He played a place called Le Monmartre which was on Chicago Avenue near the original Gate of Horn, and he was one of the big draws at the Fickle Pickle. He didn't play guitar as well as Josh White but he was charming and he had this incredible voice. You didn't know where it came from. It was almost like he was a ventriloquist, throwing his voice. I remember he did "Hooka Tooka," and he did some cowboy song. I think they took him to New York and he played some of the clubs there. He made one album and that was it.

"I always had the feeling something was wrong with him. He might have had some kind of bi-polar thing. I think he had trouble talking.

"Nobody knows what happened to him. He lost a leg. They threw a big benefit for him at Second City. I played. This was in the late '70s. We were at Trouble's at the time. We raised a lot of money. And then nobody heard from him.

"I talked to Mike Bloomfield a few days before he died. This was February '81. He died of an overdose. He was on the West Coast and we were gonna have him at Holstein's in April. I called him up--he sort of got me confused with my brother Fred. But he was still as goofy as ever. He asked for a certain date and I said I had somebody booked already. He said, 'Bump her.' I said, 'Mike I don't bump people after I book 'em.' He said, 'Okay,' and then he asked about Willie Wright. But there was nothing I could tell him.

"About eight years ago, I'm walking down Michigan Avenue and I see this homeless guy in a wheelchair. He's wearing a high school jacket, like a letterman's jacket, and he's singing and I think, 'That looks like Willie Wright.' But I'd heard Willie was dead. And I never knew him all that well. I probably only saw him a handful of times. I pass by these two businessmen and one of 'em says, 'Boy, he's great. You don't know where his voice is coming from.'

"So maybe that was Willie Wright."